May 15, 2013

{Guest Post} Leigh Hershkovich

Hi everyone! Today, I have the honor to have Leigh Hershkovich, author of Shattered Illusions, here on the blog! Without further ado...

‘Fear
can you make you compromise.’ A simple statement, but the effect
ripples and is immensely powerful. Have you ever found yourself in such a
deep state of fear that it causes you to forsake every logical voice in
your head? The fear is so deep and so intense that it momentarily makes
you believe that it has super human powers. Can you envision that kind
of fear? It grips you, shakes you and literally causes you to rethink
your entire existence. We’re not talking about a ‘simple’ fear, like a
fear of dogs or a fear of, say, jello. We’re talking about the type of
fear that turns you into an invalid. A complete and total fool. Have you
ever felt such a fear before? Perhaps you haven’t, but trust me, when
you do finally feel this fear, you’ll understand just how crippling it
can be.

For
the characters of Shattered Illusions (due out May 23rd from Full Court
Press), this type of fear is an every day occurrence. Though they are
different people that come from unique backgrounds, their fears pull
them together and create a family of them. These four people, from
diverse backgrounds and different personalities, are run by their fears.
Every one of them bases their life, and the decisions they make, on
their fears. Fear controls them. When they are brought together by
unlikely circumstances, the murder of a local business owner, their
fears reach an all time high, and they can begin to heal. It is through
the communal pain that Ella, Sarah, Danny and Marco learn how to face
their fears and recreate themselves.

Is
there a cure for something so crippling? There may be, but it is not
one that is found with ease, or can make everything disappear for good.
Perhaps it is facing the hardest fears that give a person the option to
choose. Fear is a choice. A person has the right to choose whether or
not they will allow things, big or small, to control who they are and
the decisions that they make. Fear can make you compromise everything
you know, everything you are, however, it doesn’t have to. Fear
does not have to become the deciding factor of your life. These
characters, as crippled as they are, slowly make the decision to stop
allowing their fears to define them. From fear of loss to fear of
divorce, they all come to terms with who they are and what they have to
face. It is only through their greatest lose that they learn this
lesson. Not everything in life must uproot itself due to difficulty. The
greatest cure for such crippling fears is to decide that you are beyond
the fear, as they characters do. It is not what the fear is, it is how
you handle it that makes all the difference.

When Sam, the
unassuming, salt-of-the-earth proprietor of a local cafe is shot dead on
the street, four strangers become the unwitting witnesses to a
seemingly inscrutable crime. As the investigation progresses, this
quartet of accidental onlookers find themselves not only haunted by the
homicide, but pursued by their own pasts.

The deeper into the
death they delve, the further into their own personal histories they
plummet, as each is forced to face the fact that the loss of Sam is far
from their most devastating. As the case continues, inner anguish
reaches crescendo points for Danny, Ella, Marco, and Sarah as the
answers they want continue to elude them, and the evidence they want to
escape refuses to retreat...